


The Jeweler

by teachair (halavana1)



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-23
Updated: 2017-06-23
Packaged: 2018-11-17 14:50:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11277534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halavana1/pseuds/teachair
Summary: A young woman describes how she became acquainted with a group of Elves. Set in Philadelphia PA, present time.





	The Jeweler

The Jeweler

With a name like Maurice Fennerson, we thought the neighborhood jeweler would be a pushover. We started to hassle him when we turned 13 and he just ignored us, or if he looked at us at all it was with the expression we thought meant he didn’t take us seriously. Back then, we thought he should’a known better, but just wait till I tell ya. We were the ones that should’a known better.

We lived in a housing project in some unknown barrio of Philly. The neighborhood changed with each new crowd of refugees and immigrants. The only ones who stayed were the ones that didn’t have anywhere else to go. What the Fennersons were doing there, no one could say, because they had money and could live where they wanted. But they owned a little building with their shop on the ground floor and a small office and apartment upstairs. Been there since forever and any accent they may have had when they got off the boat was long gone. I heard they had a horse farm somewhere in the burbs, but never saw the place myself. 

He was tall, about 6’4”, with black hair going gray. Lisa, his wife, wasn’t much shorter and had hair the colors of the amber and silver jewelry she wore. Neither of them seemed to care much about the way their hair made them look old. Sometimes he wore his in a ponytail almost to his waist, then cut it short just to start over again. She wore hers in the style lots of classy old ladies wear theirs, shoulder length ponytail or one of those buns my sister said was called a shinyon, however you spell it. We all were convinced they’d had multiple plastic surgeries to keep the lines off their faces, but most of us never got close enough to see any scars. I could’a told ‘em there weren’t any, at least not the kind left by a plastic surgeon, but figured I’d let my friends find out for themselves. I could’a told ‘em a lot of things, like Fennerson probably wasn’t their real name. And the gems they sold weren’t real. Well, they were real, but simulations instead of dug out of the ground. Fennerson made them himself. Made no secret of it but didn’t broadcast it either. They made a good living selling low priced engagement rings to lots of poor people. And quite a few not so poor people. 

By the time we either graduated from high school, or dropped out, we began to figure ways to get inside the Fennerson store and lift some of their merchandise. Every day one of us would go in posing as a potential customer and find either of them at the counter. He was a thin dude who looked like he’d survived some disease or other and she was what my sister called willowy. Real graceful like a ballet dancer. 

One day when I went in, they were talking about this gem stone. Seems it was flawed and they were deciding what to do with it. He wanted to destroy it. She, on the other hand, didn’t like to throw anything he made back into the kiln. Then they saw me and looked at each other. 

“Ah! Luisa!” said the lady. “We have a controversy. What should we do with this flawed gemstone? Mori wants it ground up and thrown back in with the raw materials. I rather like it though. What should we do with it?”

They called me Luisa because that was the name I told them the first time I came in. They didn’t use their real name so I figured why should I use mine. Well, anyway, I looked real close at this gem stone, and decided I wanted it, even though I could see the flaws they were talking about. It was this clear turquise color that I liked so much... Then a weird thing happened. Fennerson shrugged, took my hand and put this rock in it and closed my fingers around it. Then without a word, he went to the back room and shut the door. My first thought was “Holy S***!!! What am I gonna do with this blue ice cube?!” Then Ms. Fennerson wrote a bill of sale and handed it to me.

“Paper is so important to some people,” she murmured. “Just so no one thinks you stole it.” Then she said, “We’re closing for the day now. Did you need anything?”

I said something like “no thanks, ma’am” and left, staring at this beautiful thing in my hand. Then I read the bill of sale and it said “one simulated aquamarine stone - 2 carat - for services rendered.” Services rendered? I wondered what that meant since I hadn’t done anything for them. But hey, if they were willing to take a chance that I might do something for them someday in exchange for this rock, I wasn’t going to argue.


End file.
